This is came pretty close to getting two stars from me. I'm very torn. On one hand the world building is stellar and the cast of characters is very enjoyable. This book is so very obviously influenced by Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and I mean that in a good way. I loved the fae here, and the different worlds. It's lovely.

On the other hand.... well. To start, the method of story telling annoyed me. There's four different point of views, and we generally get just a page or two of their story before moving on to the next point of view. Now the stories all wove together very deftly, but the abrupt switiching between characters made it hard to focus. It felt very much like someone with ADHD telling the story, just when I got settled in with one character's view point Newman would switch it up.

The other thing that bothered me is that this isn't a complete story. We solve one of the problems set up in the novel, but not the others. The other is obviously left for the sequels. I don't like that kind of cliff hanger in novels. It's disingenous. A novel should be complete with-in itself. If you want to continue telling tales in that world and with those characters that's fine but when the story itself isn't finished, then you shouldn't call what you've written a complete novel, when it's just part of one.

So yes, on one hand there are parts of this novel that I love. On the other hand, there are parts of the novel that have me reconsidering whether or not I'll pick up the next novel when it comes out.